The Development of Gender-Typical Speech in Children: A Longitudinal Analysis

Abstract

Sociophonetic variation has been observed between and within gender categories in adults. There is a growing body of evidence to support the idea that some of the gender differences in the speech of adults are socially and culturally learned. There is little research on this sociophonetic variation in children, including how it is learned. Naïve adult listeners rated the gender typicality of single word productions of children at two time-points, around the age of 2 ½ and 4 ½ years. Results confirmed that variation between boys and girls increased over time. This change was due to the boys being rated as more gender typical at the last time-point as compared to the first time-point. Poorer scores on a test of articulation was correlated with being rated as more gender typical at the final time-point for boys only. These results contribute to our understanding of how children learn gender-marking in speech.